What a year of changes this has been!
Looming large over great swaths of Canada is the ongoing trade issue with the United States which, since the re-election of President Trump just over a year ago, has seen that country’s industries pushed to “buy American” through a system of punishing tariffs on many foreign (like Canada) supplies.
Nearby Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie will lose 1,000 jobs by spring as a result both of the tariffs costing the company to lose American business because of suddenly higher-priced product and also because the plant is re-tooling and modernizing in order to stay in business and the jobs would have been lost anyway, but not this soon.
This is a nearby example but variations on this theme are reverberating throughout other sectors: auto workers, sawmill and forestry workers, aluminum smelter workers and their bauxite mining colleagues in addition to the myriad of industries that support the steel making, aluminum manufacturing, softwood lumber and domestic car and truck manufacturing sectors.
It’s a lot of jobs.
Will this impact people’s holiday plans and so effect Manitoulin’s tourism industry? Quite possibly.
But we have been through this before, as a travel destination, and have weathered downtimes in the economy in the early 1980s, early 1990s, the market correction of 2008, the SARS epidemic (largely in Toronto) in 2002 and, most recently, the scourge of COVID.
The Chi Cheemaun keeps sailing, the swing bridge keeps swinging (with a new two-lane model on the horizon) and Manitoulin’s industries, tourist and otherwise, keep on humming along. We expect this to continue.
At the Expositor, there have been changes too, as some long-time members of staff left and others joined the ranks.
Kevin Spikes joined The Expositor this spring as Director of Sales and Marketing. Kevin and his wife realized a long-held dream and moved permanently to Manitoulin fairly recently, after having vacationed here since he was a child. For Kevin, a job at a newspaper is coming full circle as he is a graduate of Ryerson’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University) famed journalism department, although he has never worked directly in that field and still doesn’t but now he is a vital part of an institution that is defined by journalism and journalists. It’s interesting that Kevin’s circular path from his education to now having a tangential relationship with what he once considered his calling has been echoed by other staff changes in The Expositor.
Robyn McGauley, who Kevin replaced, had spent two years in sales and customer service with the paper and she left this job to return to a career in bookkeeping and financial administration, her long-time work prior to joining us.
And just recently, Debbie Bailey, after 10 years with the paper as circulation manager (and a myriad of other important tasks) has taken a new job with a community support organization.
While Debbie will be working in the administration side of her new employer, the fact is that her post-secondary education was as a social service worker so, like Kevin, she also has a tangential relationship with others who work for the same employer but in a social services worker capacity. Life is funny, sometimes.
While we were sorry to lose Debbie, we are welcoming Carrie Green who is just now learning about the many hats Debbie wore (and Debbie has been generous in coaching Carrie on her own time after work and on weekends). Thanks very much for this, Debbie. We wish you well.
This year we also welcomed back Xoë Roy to the production apartment. This year has seen a lot of big changes for Xoë. She is a new mom to a bouncing baby girl and was also just elected as band councillor for Sheguiandah First Nation. What a year!
Another big change is, in fact, a loss for us and for The Manitoulin Island community.
Petra Wall told us last fall that, as she was approaching a particular milestone birthday, she would be retiring her monthly column, ‘Now and Then’ in which, for 22 years, she has sat down with individuals, sometimes couples, and has told their Manitoulin stories, complete with illustrations.
This has been an enormous body of work, and it all began when someone sent a letter to the editor suggesting that profiles of older Manitoulin people would be something they would like to read in The Expositor.
Petra saw the letter and was moved to call The Expositor Office to say “I would like to do that.” And the rest is history, literally, as through Petra’s columns we learned much about the Manitoulin of the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.
Thank you, Petra, this was a Herculean effort and irreplaceable.
This year we also said goodbye to our long-time Manitoulin Secondary School correspondent Alexandra Wilson-Zegil who was not only good at this job but also good at lots of other things as well. She’s off to McMaster University now where she is a charter member of a brand-new elite program that has a focus on national and international social and political thought.
We are pleased to welcome Sara-Marie Wassegijig as the new Kids in the Hall correspondent.
Manitoulin is a sporty place and André Leblanc’s weekly column ‘Manitoulin Sporting Life’ (which happens to appear on the front page of the Manitoulin Expositor LIFE second section) does an excellent job of recording the accomplishments of Island athletes, at home and abroad, young and older. All very important news. Thanks André. Well done.
Heather Marshall, for three years, did an excellent job of introducing people who were ‘New-ish to Manitoulin.’ Heather is still doing this but a little more specifically as her focus is now on introducing serving members of the Island’s three police forces and is appropriated titled ‘On the Beat.’ Thank you, Heather, for helping us to get to know our friends, the policemen/women a little better.
Dr. Joe Shorthouse, emeritus professor of botany at Laurentian University, combs Manitoulin for unique natural finds in the myriad worlds of plants and insects and often shares his insights with readers, usually on page 5. Thank you, Dr. Joe
Claire Cline is the Mindemoya librarian where she also keeps company with Book Mice who share their insights on must-reads at her library and Claire, in turn, passes them on in the pages of The Expositor. It’s a good arrangement.
As usual, we will acknowledge Shelly Pearen, who lives in Ottawa but has an abiding interest in all things Manitoulin.
Ms. Pearen is a historian, history is always being created and, last spring, Shelly took on the task of reporting that Manitoulin Island was one of the ‘Ten Places in Canada that every Canadian should visit’ following a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) initiative that saw citizens nominate places for this distinction and, following a process of elimination, Canadians were asked to choose their Top Ten and Manitoulin is one of their choices.
Thanks, Shelly, for this and all of the other valuable submissions you’ve made over many years.
Some things do no change, at least not often. In this newspaper, this would certainly include the rural correspondents and they are, by name and community: Karen Noble, Silver Water; Heather Theijsmeijer and Jill Ferguson, Kagawong (Team Fergmeijer); Enid Runnals, Barrie Island; Elaine Bradley, Meldrum Bay; and Alexia Hanningan, Providence Bay,
Thank you all for the news and thank you as well to the rural mail contractors who deliver it, in addition to our Postmasters and staff.
The Expositor also appreciates the communiques and helpful information from the Island’s three police forces who help very much with reporting.
To our advertising friends, our readers in print and online, best wishes for a Happy Christmas and for good health for all of us in the years ahead.
Sincerely,
The staff of The Manitoulin Expositor
Alicia McCutcheon
Rick and Julia McCutcheon
Tom Sasvari
Kerrene Tilson
Michael Erskine
Marilyn Harasym
Kevin Spikes
Xoë Roy
Sean S.
Carrie Green
Jake McColman
